The morning after fire has destroyed most of your vineyard, you realize that you must decide whether or not to replant. Your UAV with multispectral imager was optimized to detect water stress using specific wavelength bands, but now the plants are gone and you wonder about the quality of the soil, now strewn with combustion…

The General Services Administration (GSA) has recognized Altavian, a Florida-based drone manufacturer, as a trusted, reliable supplier and has awarded it with a GSA Schedule contract. It’s a move that is the first of its kind for a U.S.-based UAV company. As part of the GSA Schedules Program, a GSA Schedule contract aims to facilitate…

The integration of manned and unmanned aircraft in controlled airspace is inevitable and no longer a matter of if but when. Advances on UTM (Unmanned Traffic Management) and the simplification and commercialization of detect-and-avoid systems are forcing the FAA to get closer and closer to a ruling that would allow UAV flights to operate beyond…

On December 5th, Rob Eagles, Director ATM Infrastructure and Céline Hourcade, Head Cargo Transformation of IATA made a presentation at the Global Media Day event in Geneva, Switzerland, in which they acknowledged and reviewed the challenges and opportunities that drones are bringing to the international air cargo industry. The International Air Transport Association is a…

On November 28th the FAA announced the release of a report by the Alliance for System Safety of UAS through Research, aka ASSURE. This report was commissioned in 2015 to test the potential damage to manned aircraft due to mid-air collisions with drones and how that compared to the more traditional airborne hazard: bird strike.…

One of the predictions for 2017 we made was around how companies would look to shift from “exploring” to “implementing” drone technology. Much of that was due to Part 107, as regulation had long been cited as the reason enterprise users were hesitant to adopt the technology. Under Part 107, regulation does not serve as…